


Vive la République

by australiansurmise



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Barricades, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 05:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/australiansurmise/pseuds/australiansurmise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The torch at the barricade flickered in the fading light..." Expounds upon the fall of the barricade as seen in the musical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vive la République

The torch at the barricade flickered in the fading light, one of the only signs of life in an otherwise still scene.

Even the torch would not last much longer, without someone to feed it and keep it alive. As long as the flame burned, the darkness was staved off, forced to inhabit other locations.

The torch had been lit only the previous night, but the flame of revolution had been kindled long before that. Young, educated men had kept it strong within their hearts, fed with the idealism of youth and the charisma of a leader with power not proportional to his years.

That flame was also on its deathbed. The hearts it once inhabited had all almost ceased to beat, and the ones that clung to life would soon succumb to the suffocating darkness that permeated the barricade.

The flame of the torch illuminated the bodies that decorated the barricade, and the solitary figure still on its feet. Perhaps, he could keep the flame alive for all of them.

But in the end, even he wasn't enough. The few who clung to consciousness watched with rapidly fading vision as the grabbed the discarded flag and waved it high about his head, the red silk billowing about the barricade as a last tribute to those who had fallen.

The lingerers, one by one, closed their eyes, welcoming the oncoming darkness like a long awaited friend. The remaining boy was silent as multiple bullets found a home in his previously pristine body, dragging him to the ground. His grip slackened on the flag, allowing the piece of silk to act as it pleased. It fell, tired, to wrap around the body of its patron, where the red of his blood and the red of the revolution flag became one and the same.

As the last flame of revolution met its end, its owner had one last thing to say. "Vivé la Republique," tired lips gasped out before he, too, was enveloped in darkness.

The flame of the torch flickered out, and everything was swallowed in black.

_Do not go gentle into that good night_  
 _Old age should burn and rave at close of day  
_ _Rage, rage against the dying of the light  
_

**Author's Note:**

> The verse at the end is from a poem by Dylan Thomas. Credit to him, of course.


End file.
